Jimmy Cook was one of South Africa’s leading players of the Eighties who missed out on international cricket because of the country’s sporting exile. Given a chance in England, he gorged on county attacks. He was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1990.
Jimmy Cook enjoyed two more prolific years with Somerset, passing 2,000 first-class runs again in 1990 and 1991. But in three Tests for South Africa after readmission, he made just 107 runs
The batting exploits of Jimmy Cook in his first season of county cricket were truly astonishing. The Somerset opener was the first in the land to 1,000 first-class runs (June 21) and then 2,000 (August 5), compiled the highest aggregate in a debut Sunday League season (556 runs), and became the first player since 1911 to carry his bat through both completed innings and hit hundreds in each when he scored 120 not out and 131 not out in totals of 186 and 218 against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge.
In all matches for Somerset, he scored 3,143 runs including eleven hundreds, four of them in consecutive Championship innings. There were centuries, first-class and one-day, on July 10, 16, 19, 21, 22, and 28, and in one period he batted for 14 hours 45 minutes between dismissals. In one sustained period of ten days’ cricket, he spent just under seven days on the field.
Turning 36 in mid-season, Cook played in every Somerset match, an outstanding example of fitness, dedication and concentration. His pleasant manner greatly impressed colleagues, opponents and spectators alike, and the impression he gave of thoroughly enjoying all his cricket, together with an old-fashioned chivalry as he acknowledged good cricket from opposing players as well as team-mates, was most endearing.
On the evidence of the West Indian rebel visits, which brought an enormous upsurge of interest in cricket among black South Africans (traditionally soccer is their great game), he welcomed the 1990 English visit. “At least those players will see what unbelievable strides we’ve made in cricket.”
This is the sort of positive, courteous comment one came to expect from a man of great ability who brought a splendid freshness to the business of county cricket. Not only in Somerset will Jimmy Cook be welcomed back to the fold in future.
